Amazon vs. Publishers

I'm the first to admit, I don't always pay close attention when a  story that is even somewhat interesting to me first hits.  I often find myself going back later and trying to really find out what was told, now, what is that really about? True, the story should have been quite interesting to me. A big television celebrity and his big publisher (he evidently wrote a book) were involved in a dispute with Amazon about the online retailer selling books too cheap. 

At the mature age of 65+, after years of my pure enjoyment of writing and often being flattered when a friend, a reader would say, You really should write a book....I had long ago resigned myself to travel logs and letters to friends and family and an occasional sad and creative euology.  Publishers, editors, none of that was feasible at all in the past.  Then lo and behold, a miracle! Amazon.com was offering a free platform, an opportunity for unknown authors to publish their work. I was damn sure that, an unknown writer.   I could actually have a novel, on the internet and only if someone chose to take a chance and read my creation, at a very cheap price, would I then share in the profits with Amazon, the store window that nicely displayed my book. 

All of us, the enormous unpublished, unnoticed writers enthusiastically flooded to the market place.  Happy to have our little bit of extra income and just a bit of recognition. I mean, OMG, there's my book...it looks like a book, it reads like a book, it has my name on it and someone even paid $2.99 to read it.   And more importantly, people who love to read suddenly had a smorgasbord of material for their library at a pittance.  But then, the publishers and the already successful authors begin to take some notice.  What were they missing out on? What was all this e-book nonsense? This was not necessarily good for the independent, self published authors. It was stiff competition when known  authors begin to offer their wares in our marketplace.  But, hey, that's the way it is...it's a free market.

And then, there was the story. I decided that I better try to find out what the dispute really was about, the two sides. It's truly not much deeper than what it originally seemed.  It's...surprise! just about the money.  The truth is, the big publishers don't want to offer their clients books at discount prices, don't want to compete.  Of course they have the perfect right, not to.   Well, gosh darn it, why should they want to give up their business plan? They want you to continue to go to the book store and pay at least ten times what it cost to publish a book and you get a lovely volume for your shelf.  And lucky you, you own one of zillions of copies of a book by a famous author.  Wait though, that's not good enough. They want to TELL Amazon how they should be conducting business and how much the "fair" price should be for books offered.

Sorry, but the way I see it is Amazon is great for authors (both new and seasoned), great for readers and of course, fantastically successful for the company.  How ludicrous that a publishing company would assume they should control the policies of Amazon.  It's amazing to me that only when someone has an innovative and successful idea, the hit dogs start to yelp. Of course, they hate Walmart and Amazon and other real world and online discounters...they want you to continue to pay $50 for their $5 t-shirts or whatever...like books.